System and method for capturing user activity using wearable devices

ABSTRACT

A system for tracking worker activity on a job site over a local area network. The system comprises providing a mobile device for each worker. Each mobile device has a programmable micro-processor, memory and radio modem with antenna, that is configured to emit radio signals in the form of an advertisement packet as a beacon over a simplex local network. Each mobile device has a push button for a worker to press upon completing an activity. The programmable micro-processor is configured to track time to complete an activity and handle worker interaction with the pressing of the push button by calculating the duration between consecutive button pushes and broadcasting this duration along with a device identifier within the advertisement packet over the local network.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention is associated with the field of tracking useractivities for mobile personal via connected wearable devices. Itdepicts the usage of beacon devices that can advertise data related tothe device information, where about and other user activities overdifferent radio technology, where a nearby scanning device is able tocapture and decode the specific message into a traceable user activity.

The invention presents one example where the cevice is implemented as aBluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon using Apple iBeacon specification toformat its advertisement, and is capable to broadcast customizedadvertisement data, therefore enabling a nearby mobile smartphone toscan and track the start and/or completion of a job by a worker on aconstruction site. It is assumed that a reader skilled in the art ofuser activities tracking is able to easily relate to other usage of theinvention in different business or consumer applications such astracking health workers, firefighters or even kids activities among manyother usage scenarios.

BACKGROUND

Traditional activities based tracking solutions of mobile workers havebeen focused on improving safety via automated on-site presence andlocation detection, or on cost reduction via business process automationby collecting on-site worker time. Moreover, product and solutions thataddressed worker activities on a job site to efficiently provide taskbased tracking required dependency on mobile applications to enter andcollect user activities.

While each category of these solutions are critically important to thesuccess of any business, the focal point has remained heavily dependenton expensive approach that either required equipping individual workerwith a smartphone or building and maintaining a proprietary network ofconnected devices, network nodes and gateways (such as RFID meshednetwork) despite major advancement in the Internet of Things (IoT)devices and connectivity.

Moreover, the proliferation of IoT networks such as Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE), WiFi, Zigbee, etc. has led to more efficient solutions forconnected world in home, vehicle and business automation. Nonetheless,most of these solutions are focused on data collection such as telemetryor device interaction typically via a traditional mobile device such assmartphone, tablet or laptop.

Additionally, existing methods and systems for interacting from an IoTsmart device to a connected device such as smartphone are limited tobroadcasting the device information in order to communicate specificactivities or proximity. In more recent effort, there have been a lotsof IoT devices enabling the holder to communicate to nearby mobiledevice or the cloud a specific activity. For example, we recently sawthe introduction of many keyfob devices that can send a message over BLEto nearby mobile device to activate a buzzer for finding the lostdevice. In other scenarios, the BLE keyfob can vibrate when the usermoves away from her phone. In similar scenario, the keyfob is used tobroadcast an emergency message with the click of a button to nearbymobile devices or to the cloud.

Our invention extends the current capability of these IoT devices toovercome the limitation of current solutions to provide efficientbusiness automation for mobile workers. The invention describes methodsfor providing accurate personnel activity tracking by deliveringrelevant activity context in advertised data to nearby mobile device ornetwork gateway. In this model, both the IoT wearable device and thescanner are equipped with standard network technology such as BLE as atransmitter and receiver respectively. The wearable device for thepurpose of providing an example of implementation to the reader isdepicted as a smart keyfob providing one or more buttons and led lightsfor user interaction, and implements standard BLE beacon advertisementmodel using iBeacon specification; while the receiver is a standardsmartphone supporting BLE 4.0+ such as an iPhone 6.

SUMMARY

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a computerimplemented method, apparatus and computer usable program is provided tofacilitate automated tracking of user activity for on-site workers.

At the very basic, accurately capturing on-site user presence is animportant business process currently implemented in different approachesincluding manual attendance checking, smartphones with GPS applications,and RFID tags with fixed or mobile scanning stations.

While the attendance data can be leveraged to automate workertimesheets, other data such as accurate location of the where about of aworker can be as valuable during emergency. Additionally, the ability tocapture more granular data of user activities such as the task they'reworking on can be even more valuable to any business to get real-timevisibility on their business processes.

Thus by allowing on-site communication between the workers and theirmanagers to capture worker activities will lead to reduced cost andimproved productivity and safety on any work site without the overheadsfrom alternative and expensive mobile app/smartphone solutions per eachworker.

Hence some of the advantages of our invention are the ability to deliveraccurate tracking for user activities by leveraging wearable devicesthat communicate efficiently with nearby smartphones/tablets carried byon-site managers or located at fixed on-site locations.

At the very basic, our system of invention describes a system and methodto address reliability issues with nearable network created by thescanning smartphone to capture accurately the data from users. Thedisclosure herein depicts a caching mechanism in which the system ofworker mobile devices, depicted in the embodiment described as wearablebeacon devices, capable of advertising multiple data sets includingpreviously cached user activities. This mechanism will therefore enablethe system of the present invention at the scanning side to be able tocapture lost user activities that may have been resulted from anyscenario such as worker or manager being outside the capable range ofbeacons and scanning devices, worker is inside closed area that theradio signal can not penetrate, network range or BLE interference amongother scenarios.

Secondly, the present disclosure provides systems and methods toaccurately identify specific worker activities using the beaconadvertisement model that can include limited set of information withinfew bytes of the payload. In this case, the disclosure describes aserver that provides planning, sequencing and prediction of useractivities, a mobile application that can discover geo-based activitieson-site and maintain the predefined sequence or allow the manager torearrange the tasks for accurate tracking of each new advertisedactivity from the wearable beacons.

Thirdly, the invention describes a system and method to extend thebeacon custom advertisement method with additional capability to providefurther features for activity tracking.

The first and second methods depict the usage of custom advertisementpayload that includes the necessary information to identify the workeror beacon device, the specific performed activity along a set of mostrecent activities. In this advancement, the system of our inventionintroduces a communication protocol that fits within the availablelimited set of data to support different set of activities such requestfor assistant, emergency, breaks etc. and therefore providing furthersupport for capturing different types of user activities.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order that the invention may be more clearly understood, oneembodiment thereof will now be described in detail by way of example,with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a user activity tracking systemaccording to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of one method of tracking user activity using thesystem of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of one method of tracking user activity wheremultiple activity data is advertised using the system of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of one method of tracking user activity where areversed beacon-scanner is used.

Similar references are used in different figures to denote similarcomponents

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Methods and arrangements for capturing detail user activities (such asJob Costing) using wearable beacon devices and mobile application aredisclosed in this application.

Before embodiments of the invention are explained in detail, it is to beunderstood that the invention is not limited in its application to thedetails of the examples set forth in the following descriptions orillustrated drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments andof being practiced or carried out for a variety of applications and invarious ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology andterminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should notbe regarded as limiting.

Before embodiments of the software modules or flow charts are describedin details, it should be noted that the invention is not limited to anyparticular software language described or implied in the figures andthat a variety of alternative software languages may be used forimplementation of the invention.

It should also be understood that many components and items areillustrated and described as if they were hardware elements, as iscommon practice within the art. However, one of ordinary skill in theart, and based on a reading of this detailed description, wouldunderstand that, in at least one embodiment, the components comprised inthe method and tool are actually implemented in software.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present inventionmay be embodied as a system, method or computer program product.Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirelyhardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (includingfirmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodimentcombining software and hardware aspects that may all generally bereferred to herein as a “circuit”, “module” or “system.” Furthermore,the present invention may take the form of a computer program productembodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer usableprogram code embodied in the medium.

Computer program code for carrying out operations of the presentinvention may be written in any combination of one or more programminglanguages, including an object oriented programming language such asJava, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programminglanguages such as the “C” programming language or similar programminglanguages, or scripted language such as JavaScript on Node.Js.

The program code for the scanning device may execute entirely on theuser's smartphone, as a stand-alone software and hardware package orpartly on the user's smartphone and partly on a remote computer orserver. In the latter scenario, the scanning device may be connected tothe remote server through any type of network, including mobile telecomnetwork (3G/4G/LTE), a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network(WAN), or the connection may be made to a cloud computer (through theInternet using an Internet Service Provider).

Our method and system of invention are driven by the pressing need toprovide accurate job costing product to the construction industry thatdisrupt existing cost inefficient methods based on smartphones, fixedstations or meshed network networks for FRID devices.

Thus providing a system and method to deliver cost efficient personaltracking solution is of tremendous value to the construction industryand to other verticals such as health, Oil and Gas, as well consumerssuch as kids presence at school and on-bus, in parks or events, etc.

In one embodiment of the invention the system and method of theinvention depicts; an apparatus as a wearable beacon device by which aconstruction worker pushes a button to trigger completion of an activejob; a mobile software application scanning for the beaconadvertisement, and a cloud server providing the jobs and resourcesplanning and tracking for a predefined site location along a method tocapture the specific task update from the specific worker.

FIG. 1 shows one exemplary embodiment of the invention 100. A worker 101pushes a soft or a hard button on the beacon device 102 in order toadvertise completion of his current job.

The System of Invention software agent embedded on the beacon devicebuilds a custom advertisement payload that includes the deviceidentifier, the advertisement type and the duration of the task.

The beacon device 102 then starts the advertisement process overBluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to broadcast to a nearby scanning device thestatus update of the current assigned task. In this example, theembedded software uses an iBeacon specification for formatting thepayload where the custom data is assembled to fit in a 4 bytes datafields from the combination of Major and Minor fields respectively asdefined by iBeacon specification.

The System of Invention scanning software is provided as a mobileapplication running on a standard Smartphone or Tablet 103 capable ofscanning for BLE advertisement. The application is therefore able todecode the advertised payload to identify; the broadcasting device, theadvertisement type and task duration. For a task completionadvertisement type, it validates the data to ensure valid beaconidentifier and task duration are provided and informs the manager 104 ofthe assigned task completion and duration along other relevantinformation such as distance away from the worker.

The manager in this example a foreman 104, a user of the scanning devicemay decide to review the task status for verification and approval. Uponapproval or on manual trigger or automated synchronization, theapplication relays the data over available network connectivity 105 toour server software 106 of our System of Invention.

In one embodiment the beacon keyfob may be implemented to advertise itspayload over any other radio frequencies and networks such as WiFi,ZegBee, 3G/4G/LTE, Weightless-N, or others. In this case, the System ofInvention scanning software maybe embedded on a scanning device thatsupports the same type of radio frequency, network specification andprotocol.

In another embodiment, the system of invention scanning software may getembedded on a relay system that performs only the scanning function andrelays other functions such as decoding the payload, informing a user orrelaying the data to the server software, to another smart connecteddevice that performs these functions. In that case, the relay device maycommunicate to the smart device via serial or wireless connection andmay use any radio networks and specification such as Bluetooth, ZigBee,WiFi, or others. Similarly, the system of invention scanning softwaremay be connected to the server software via the Internet, a LAN, a WAN,a PAN or other such networks.

These are mere examples of some of the main types of networks in generaluse, but the invention is not limited to these examples, but in factcovers all networks that may be used to connect the different componentof our system of invention—embedded software on beacon, scanning device,and server software.

In one embodiment of the invention the system and method of theinvention provides a process by which a worker submits a job completionto a nearby manager.

FIG. 2 above shows one exemplary embodiment of the invention 200. Thewearable beacon device carried by the worker is represented by 201 and202, while the scanning device that provide a display for jobs status toa worker manager is represented by 203 and 204.

The beacon provides a multi-function push button for jobs submission.Upon finishing a job, the worker pushes the button as per 201. Theembedded beacon software 202 responsible for handling the pushbuttonfirst validates the event using a debounce or similar method to ensurenon-incidental clicks. It then informs the worker of a valid click viaavailable user interface exposed by the beacon such as multi-color ledlight, buzzer and/or vibration. The actual implementation of thisfunction can be easily provided by turning the led light on and changingits color from flashing to solid green.

The beacon also provides a mechanism to calculate job duration timeusing by calculating time difference between two valid clicks for jobssubmission extracted either from a simple counter or a proper timer.

For a valid click and job duration, the embedded software thereafterbuilds the custom advertisement payload that includes the deviceidentifier, the type of advertisement and job duration and fits the dataan available data beacon advertisement fields such as Major and Minor inthe case of iBeacon. The embedded software thus restarts theadvertisement process using the above payload as described above.

The system of invention scanning software 203 implements the underlyinghosting scanning device BLE stack to continuously monitor for predefinednearby beacons in range by monitoring for specific beacon UUIDs. Thesoftware alternates from monitoring to ranging as necessary to consumebattery. Monitoring is used to identify own beacons in range whileranging is used to capture the full advertisement payload for identifiedbeacons.

The software persists all captured beacon data and constantly utilizesthose to compare with new scanned data to check for changes. For newpayload it validates the job update data and then inform its user—theforeman of the assigned task completion and duration along otherrelevant information such as distance away from the worker as shown in204 and detailed above. Foreman is therefore able to review the jobsdata and adjust if necessary.

In another embodiment the system of invention depicts a method wherebymultiple jobs data is advertised and captured in order to addresses outof range or not captured jobs submission.

FIG. 3 above shows another exemplary embodiment of the invention 300whereby an enhanced data protocol is used in the advertisement andscanning in order to address the above mentioned concerns with BLEreliability or due to interference on job sites. The method herebydetailed is at the core of our system of invention and describes keysteps and different scenarios to overcome these challenges.

Thus, in one embodiment the system of invention embedded beacon software302 handles and validates workers click events via the exposed pushbutton as detailed in 301 and earlier for FIG. 2. The beacon embeddedsoftware persists in its repository previously advertised payload. Thesoftware implements an encoding protocol that append new job duration toprevious set of advertised jobs as depicted in step 303. The softwarealso uses a binary format to encode the payload data in a protocol thatallocates a fixed block of bits per duration. In this example, thesoftware implements 3 blocks of 5 bits each in order to allow for 3 jobdurations each based on 15 min increments and 8 hours maximum durationeach, thus fitting in the available minor data of 16 bits. The softwareimplements a bit shifting method to manipulate the payload data in amanner that when a new job is appended to the payload, the softwareshifts the blocks of bits to the rights, hence dropping the right sideblock or the earliest job and appending the new block to the left of thedata packet. Once, the bits manipulation is completed, the softwarethereafter converts the bits into an unsigned 16 bits integer andassigns the resulting value into the Minor field of the iBeaconspecification and starts thereafter the beacon advertisement process.

In another embodiment, the system of invention can extend the number ofjob duration advertised by enhancing the protocol to support payloadconcatenation in which the first bit is utilized to specific theconcatenation number and the remaining blocks of bits is used exactly asdescribed in the above embodiment. In this scenario, the softwareconfigures the beacon to advertise the concatenation payloads separatedby short interval such as 100 millsec.

Alternatively, the embedded software can advertise each set ofconcatenated payload data into one of the predefined BLE channels andthus allowing up to 3 concatenated payload each capable of including 3job durations.

Using the same approach, the 3 blocs of 5 bits each can be reconfiguredto support 2 larger blocks that each can fit 6 bits for shorter durationincrement such as 5 min, and/or larger maximum duration.

In one embodiment, the scanning software 304, monitoring for own beacon,frequently ranges to capture the full payload and decodes the payloaddata using the reverse algorithm of encoding used by the beacon embeddedsoftware. In 305, the software frequently checks for new advertised jobsby comparing the decoded data with previously received and persisteddata. The software compares all jobs to ensure it captures any missednew job submission in scenario where the worker and the foreman were outof range for some time and during any job submission. It then informsthe foreman of the assigned task completion and duration as previouslydescribed in FIG. 2.

In another embodiment, the system of invention scanning software 103connected to system of invention planning and tracking server 106 overInternet connection, frequently pulls the server for new jobs andassigned resources based on its current location. The server responsiblefor job sequencing per resource allows thus the scanning software tomaintain the sequencing of retrieved jobs for each monitored worker.Moreover, the scanning software allows the foreman to easily reorder thejob sequencing on demand in order to adjust to real-time scenario ofconstruction site. Thus the scanning software when validating a newscanned advertisement payload, it uses the predefined sequence for aspecific worker to ensure it correlates the updated job duration fromthe beacon with the appropriate job. It uses the same method to ensurethe correlation is maintained when multiple job updates are received atonce after an out of range scenario.

In one embodiment, the system of invention provides a method and processfor allowing a worker to communicate with the on-site manager for otherneeds beside the job costing main function of the pushbutton on thebeacon. In this case, the button is implemented as a multi-functionbutton. When a worker 101 clicks and holds the button down, our systemof invention embedded software handles the different events of thebutton such as onClick, onHold, onRelease, etc. When in onHold event isdetected, the software cycles through the different functions with somedelay to allow for release. Upon release, the specific function can beenabled. The software also informs the worker of the state of the buttonand the selected feature by cycling also through the different colors ofthe led light or buzzers and vibrations. For example, the software canbe programmed to assign green for job submission, blue for assistant,red for emergency, yellow for administration, etc. When the worker iscycling through the different functions, the software will change theled color accordingly, and when released it activates the specificfunction and turns the assigned led color into flashing light with atimer for auto deactivate. Once in a flashing mode, the worker can clickthe button again to submit the request within a short delay for example3 seconds. Alternatively, the multi-function button can be programmed inany other method such as one click for job submission, double clicks forassistance, click and hold for 3 seconds to request help, etc.Regardless of the user interface it's important to identify the methodof invention which depicts a communication protocol over theadvertisement channels which can use a single channel or more to deliverthe necessary information for multiple message types and advertise oneor more at the same time to communicate to the scanning software asingle or multiple job updates, commands or a workflow of chainedcommands. For example, the worker can push the button in a specificsequence of event such to inform his foreman to come find him forinstruction on the next job once he receive his update for the currentjob.

In another embodiment, the system of invention depicts a method and aprocess where a foreman can initiate a request from his scanning deviceto the worker beacon device to find the foreman or provide proximitydirection guidance to the foreman as depicts below.

FIG. 4 below shows another exemplary embodiment of the invention 400whereby a reversed beacon-scanner model is used to allow the worker tofind his Foreman.

A foreman using the system of invention scanning software on hissmartphone 401 selects a worker carrying the system of invention beaconto request help with guidance to find the foreman. In 402 the scanningsoftware stops its scanning activity to connect to the specific beaconand submit the help request.

In 403, the system of invention targeted embedded beacon software, uponreceiving the request, stops its beacon advertisement mode and sends anacknowledgement to the initiating scanning software. It thereafterswitches to a scanner mode and starts monitoring for a specific beaconUUID received in the message.

Thereupon confirming of recipient of the message, the scanningsmartphone software disconnect from the worker beacon, and switch to abeacon mode that advertises its information and location captured fromthe underlying smartphone GPS as show in 404.

The beacon thereafter starts scanning for the specific beacon UUID as in405. Upon capturing of data using a similar protocol decoder as above,it uses the multi-color led light to guide the worker with the walkingdirection. In this model, green is used for right while blue is for leftand red to go straightforward. The system of invention software iscapable of predicting the direction based on beacon TX power that mapsto distance along the received smartphone geo-coordinate in theadvertisement payload.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A system for tracking worker activity on ajob site over a local area network, comprising a mobile device for eachworker, each mobile device comprising a programmable micro-processor,memory and radio modem with antenna, that is configured to emit radiosignals in the form of an advertisement packet as a beacon over asimplex local network; each mobile device having a push button for aworker to press upon completing an activity; the programmablemicro-processor is configured to track time to complete an activity andhandle worker interaction with the pressing of the push button bycalculating the duration between consecutive button pushes andbroadcasting this duration along with a device identifier within theadvertisement packet over the local network.
 2. A system according toclaim 1 further comprising a supervisor mobile device having aprogrammable a programmable micro-processor, that is configured toreceive the advertisement packets from each worker; the programmablemicro-processor configured to track time for each worker to complete anactivity.
 3. A system according to claim 2 wherein the supervisor mobiledevice is configured to scan for the advertisement packets of eachworker and is configured to; a. Decode the advertised packet into anactivity duration for each worker b. Store information for an operatorto assign the captured duration to a specific worker activity c. Relaythe information to a cloud server via an internet connection eitherimmediately or upon verification by the operator.
 4. The system of claim3 wherein the duration is transformed and encoded with a scalingalgorithm in order to deliver bigger duration in each packet.
 5. Thesystem of claim 4 wherein the system improves the reliability of a BLEsignal and reduce the risk of data loss when the broadcaster and scannerare out of range for a long time, by; a. storing a large number ofprevious activities duration, b. broadcasting a set of the most recentdurations that can fit in the data packet using last in/first outalgorithm, c. transforming the data with a scaling algorithm enabling todeliver larger amount of time duration in each packet, d. tagging theadvertising packet with a concatenation identifier in order to chain andsequence multiple advertisement packets.
 6. The system of claim 5further consisting of a flexible protocol to deliver different commandsover a single data packet, such as type of activity (start of job, endof job, punch-in, break, etc.).
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein theprogrammable micro-processor of each mobile device is configured tohandle and interpret multiple clicks into different activity types andlong hold for emergency and sending a panic alert.
 8. The system ofclaim 7 wherein the different activity types are selected from the groupconsisting of job duration, job canceling, requesting help or find me.9. The system of claim 1, wherein data is transformed and encoded formaximum data fitting in a single advertisement packet.
 10. A systemaccording to claim 2 configured to predict the actual activity for eachreceived duration, consisting of; a. having the operator enter a dailyplan as sequence of activities for each worker, b. reconstructing thetimeline of activities for each worker from the received sequence ofdurations, c. mapping the reconstructed timeline of activity duration tothe planned activities and thereafter assigning each duration to thecorrelated activity.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the daily planis automatically loaded from the cloud server without requesting theoperator to manually enter a daily plan.
 12. The system of claim 10,further embodying context aware to the scanner and the cloud datastorage system to accurately load different sequences of activities foreach worker at specific worksites based on location and timeautomatically.
 13. The system of claim 10, further consisting oftransforming the timeline into accurate work-logs by; a. Comparing localstored durations with the new received packet b. Scaling down or upindividual durations to compensate for already scaled duration duringthe packet encoding on the mobile device of claim 1, c. Shifting back orscaling down the most recent duration where the last activity will gobeyond the current time on the scanner system, d. Trimming the firstduration by aligning its start with the first breadcrumb for presence ofthe beacon to align with the start of day/shift on the scanningsoftware.
 14. The system of claim 13, further configured to filterinvalid durations/clicks that are triggered off-shift using its shiftaware context.
 15. The system of claim 13, further configured to filterinvalid durations/clicks that are determined to be triggered off-site byexecuting a pattern matching processing analysis for the proximity datapersisted as breadcrumbs over the timeline with the worksite zone toeliminate out-of-range scenarios.
 16. The system of claim 2, whereinsupervisor mobile device is configured to allow an operator to find thelocation of each a specific worker, by; a. Connecting to a worker'smobile device to switch its behavior from an advertiser to an observer,b. Thereafter switching its own behavior from an observer to anadvertiser, c. triangulating the worker's mobile device's locationdetermine its relative compass position d. thereafter appending therelative positioning to the advertised packet.
 17. The system of claim16, wherein the supervisor mobile device initially acts as anadvertiser, handles the request from the workers mobile device andstarts listening for a signal from a specific workers mobile device. 18.The system in claim 17, capable of decoding and analysing eachadvertisement packet to define a navigation path for a workers mobiledevice toward the requesting supervisor mobile device.
 19. The system ofclaim 18, further providing navigation direction via four LEDs whereineach LED is assigned a relative direction such as North, East, South andWest.